Apr. 26, 2013

Turkia Awada Mullin was paid a controversial $200,000 severance from Wayne County when she quit. On Thursday, she was awarded more than three and a half times that over her firing as CEO of Metro Airport. / 2011 photo by Kathleen Galligan/Detroit Free Press

That award is more than three and half times the $200,000 severance Wayne County paid her when she resigned her job there — a payment that sparked a grand jury investigation of county corruption and sparked such outcry that Mullin eventually agreed to repay it, minus taxes.

Mullin’s award, plus $98,543 in fees for her attorney Raymond Sterling, will be paid by the airport, which is funded through fees paid by airport users

The case centered on whether Mullin was honest in her application and throughout her two-month tenure running the airport. Several members of the airport board said in depositions at Mullin’s arbitration hearings that they felt she was dishonest in her application and afterward.

Arbitrator Paul Teranes disagreed.

“In looking at the claims of dishonesty by Ms. Mullin in the application process, I find that Ms. Mullin’s actions were not dishonest, but understandable acts of a person in Ms. Mullin’s preferred position when she is applying for the job of CEO of the airport,” Teranes wrote in a 17-page ruling released Thursday.

Airport board member Bernard Parker said that going into arbitration, both sides agreed not to appeal the decision.

“People who use the airport are going to suffer as a result of it,” Parker said, referring to fees paid by airport users

Deborah Gordon, an employment law expert who is suing Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano in another matter, said she sees no likelihood of the award being overturned, even if the airport board tried to appeal.

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“It seems unjust, and it probably is unjust, but that’s because it was a sweetheart deal to begin with,” Gordon said. “Unfortunately, sweetheart deals are just as enforceable as other deals.”

Ficano, who took significant heat as a result of the severance payment, declined to comment through his spokeswoman.

Teranes also ruled the airport board violated Mullin’s due process rights by not allowing her to make a statement during the meeting at which she was fired from her $250,000-a-year job and by not informing her in advance that her termination was possible at the meeting.

Teranes declined to rule on whether the airport violated the Wage and Hour Act, as Mullin claims, saying that claim should be heard by the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth. He also declined to award Mullin the $750,000 she sought for a three-year renewal on her contract.

“The Airport Authority Board is disappointed with the outcome of the arbitration and continues to believe the board took appropriate action in 2011 when it terminated Ms. Mullin for cause,” the airport said in a statement attributed to board chairwoman Suzanne Hall. “It is important to note that this arbitration decision does not impact taxpayers because the Airport Authority is entirely self-sustaining and does not receive tax dollars to support airport operations. We have since continued to move forward.”

Hall, Parker and other board members had maintained Mullin was fired for lying, being dishonest and misrepresenting herself in the interview process by obtaining an answer to a written question beforehand. Her contract specified she could be fired only for just cause, defined as “dishonesty, theft, willful misconduct, breach of fiduciary duty or unethical business conduct which is injurious to the authority in other than a de minimus manner.”

Mullin acknowledged that Lynn Ingram, former communications director for Ficano, wrote the words she used to answer the question. She testified she memorized the words before writing them as part of the interview process and had learned through the county rumor mill that such a question would be included, according to Teranes’ ruling.

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Teranes dismissed a defamation claim against Parker, who had publicly questioned Mullin’s honesty.

“I’m glad the arbitrator saw there was no merit to that. … What I said in public is what I believed,” Parker said. “It’s not anything against her. It was what I believed was correct.

“I just think it’s really a shame,” Parker said. “It’s unfortunate that she’s walking away with that type of money. It should have never been in the contract from the beginning. That was our mistake for putting it in there.”

Board members also had questioned whether Mullin was honest when she said she had a written contract that entitled her to the controversial $200,000 severance. She told them she had a contract, but she never could produce one that was signed.

Mullin did include a now infamous, undated letter from Ficano on two-year-old stationery, which indicated Mullin was entitled to 12 months of salary when she left her county job.

Ficano testified he intended to give her the same terms as her predecessor, Mulu Birru, who received 12 months of salary when he left in in 2008. But Birru had a signed contract and was forced out. Mullin had no signed contract, only an oral agreement with Ficano, and she voluntarily left.

Ficano testified that he signed the letter in early September 2011 after Mullin had been hired at the airport. His testimony backed up Mullin’s assertions that she was entitled to the severance, said Gordon, the employment law expert.

Ficano later called Mullin’s severance payment a mistake and asked her to repay it.

Based on his testimony in the case, Mullin could — at least in theory — ask for it back now, Gordon said.

“He testified that there was an agreement,” Gordon said. “So why did he ask for it back?”

Sterling, Mullin’s attorney, called the ruling a win and said it noted that “Mullin was completely honest with the airport in all respects” and the airport “did not have just cause to fire her.”

Sterling has scheduled a news conference for today at which Mullin is expected to speak, though he said questions must be submitted in advance.

Last September, the airport board named Tom Naughton, who had been the interim CEO since Mullin’s firing, to the permanent position. He also is paid $250,000 annually under a three-year contract.

Labor activist Robert Davis, who sued the airport, alleging it violated the Open Meetings Act in the way it handled Mullin’s hiring and firing, said he wasn’t surprised by the ruling. He said it highlights the missteps of the airport board.

“All of the members of the Airport Authority Board who had a hand in this should be replaced and removed,” Davis said.

Davis has asked the Michigan Court of Appeals to void any judgment in favor of Mullin because he alleges open meetings violations.

“What is most disheartening with this expected ruling is the fact that you have hundreds of union employees who are getting the shaft from the Airport Authority, all the while the Airport Authority has spent millions on litigating this arbitration case that their ineptness caused them to lose,” Davis said.